ناهار

The adjective is most probably from ناـ (nâ-, “non-, un-”) + آهار (âhâr, “food, stew”), exactly equivalent to Sanskrit अनाहार (anāhāra, “not taking food, abstinent”). Compare also Old Armenian նիհար (nihar), an Iranian borrowing. The Persian dictionaries derive the noun for “lunch” from this adjective, saying that it originally referred to something eaten on an empty stomach (breakfast). On the other hand, John R. Perry (emerite professor of Persian at the University of Chicago) derives the noun from Arabic نَهار (nahār, “day, daytime”) with a vocalic assimilation that is not unusual in Persian; compare colloquial چاهار (čâhâr) for چهار (čahâr). In fact, both the noun and the adjective were also formerly spelt نهار (nahâr). It might be hypothesised that the inherited word was associated with the Arabic based on the parallelism with Persian روزه (ruze, “fasting”), which is eventually derived from روز (ruz, “day”). Compare also شام (šâm, “supper”, originally “evening”).